Osceola

Osceola (1804-30 January 1838) was a mixed-race leader of the Seminoles of Florida during the Seminole Wars with the United States government.

Biography
Billy Powell was born in Tallassee, Alabama in 1804, the son of Scottish trader William Powell and mixed-race Creek woman Polly Coppinger. In 1814, after the US victory over the Creeks in the Creek War, Polly took Osceola to Florida to live with other Creek refugees, who became a part of the Seminoles. He took two wives, including an African-American woman, and he fiercely opposed the enslavement of free people. In 1832, when a few Seminole chiefs signed a treaty with the US government which gave up their Florida lands in exchange for lands in the Indian Territory, Osceola stabbed the treaty with a knife. He was outraged when the Seminoles were forbidden from carrying arms, believing that they were being treated like slaves, and he felt betrayed by his friend, the Indian agent Wiley Thompson, when he was locked up in prison for two nights for barging into Thompson's office and complaining to him. On 28 December 1835, with a rifle that Thompson had given him as a gift, Osceola killed Thompson and then ambushed a column of 100 US Army troops marching from Fort Brooke to Fort King in the Dade Massacre, starting the Second Seminole War. On 21 October 1837, Osceola and 81 of his followers were captured by General Joseph Marion Hernandez under a white flag of truce while negotiating for peace at Fort Peyton, and his capture by deceit caused a national uproar. He died in prison at Fort Moultrie, South Carolina in 1838 at the age of 34, having suffered from quinsy. Osceola was buried with military honors.